Better yet, couldn't GPS receiver detectors be made? I assume they'd be cheaper (not to mention, more legal) than jammers. Say, incorporate them into the car's keyfob. It blinks red when there's a GPS receiver in action -- a great way (wink-wink) for people with legit GPS devices to test that they're operational. At least people would know if they were bugged. Then they could go about removing the thing.
So, any legal eagles care to comment on if a private individual discovers such a device installed on their car w/o consent finds and then destroys it, are they guilty of anything as a result of doing so?
Had the place for about 15 months. It was a bank repo. Aside from busted plumbing due to the house freezing, and having to clear out another family's crap (there was a *lot*), it's a nice place. Solid brick.
Have you browsed the yogurt aisle at your local grocery store lately? You need to actually read labels to make sure you're getting the stuff w/ live, active cultures. Ditto sour cream. If you're lucky, maybe 3 brands out of 20 will have the stuff. These days, it's not the no-brainer you make it out to be.
Hypothetical: We find out that John Kerry actually won Ohio... so BushCo. gets evicted and Kerry gets to be President for two weeks before Hillary gets sworn in.
Straw men, and plenty of them. Teach your kids to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic, then they can do the rest themselves to whatever level they aspire to. I can help with many subjects, but so can books, libraries, and the internet. Many great people (businessmen, politicians, etc.) rose to prevalence in the not-too-distant past with little or no formal education. Toss the TV and video game consoles, and kids will turn to reading and exploring topics of all sorts.
Google "unschooling" as a growing trend in home schooling.
Limiting debt is also becoming more and more of an issue. Yes, many people 'indulge' in things that they don't necessarily need. But there are also debts like college education (becoming more and more necessary, especially with the economy still in flux as it is) and the rise in house prices. Being able to raise your own pork, etc. is not an option when most of the population can't live on farms.
I live on a 1/4-acre parcel. Zoning is the issue. But even in places where you cannot have pigs, you can often raise rabbits (meat, wool), goats (meat, milk), and chickens (meat, eggs). Lacking favorable zoning, there is livestock that can be raised indoors clandestinely (rabbit, quail, guinea pig) as well as vegetables. I'm lucky in that I do live very rural, outside of an incorporated city or town, and my nearest neighbor is 0.5 miles away.
As for "good" primary education and college, those things are only really necessary if you hope your children will opt into the same rat-race as everyone else. If you can swing it on a low income and provide much for yourself, you have no need for a college education. That doesn't mean our kids will be uneducated by any means. However, our goal is to produce well-read, self-sufficient people with the ability to reason. If they want to pursue college to their own ends, they will certainly be able to do so.
I wrote a shell script to scrape every zipcode (on a per-state basis) from realtor.com, and I searched several states for houses $20k and under. If you're willing to eek out a living in a severely economically depressed area (say, if you telecommute like I do), there are plenty to be found out there. This was to facilitate a potential move to a new region.
That's not how I found my current digs, however. That was pure luck and patience.
Homes in this price range will never be featured on the cover of Martha Stewart Living, but they do just fine for those who are not obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses.
Most parents now have to work 50+ hours a week (with both parents working) to keep their children in good schools and pay all of the other things that need to be paid. That they aren't able to keep up with everything their children do isn't a sign of their quality of parenting, its a human limitation.
No, it's a sign of rampant consumerism. I'm raising a family of 4 on 16.75/hr @ 4hr/day (that's $17420/yr). I work from home and we home school the kids. One $40,000 1200-ft^2 house, one $16,000 truck, and a handful of low utilities. No unsecured debt, no payday loans, no over-indulgence on shiny things. We live well and eat even better (Ever eat home-raised pork? It don't get much better than that.) The boogie-man of "good schools" causing people to flee to rich 'burbs with good schools and "force" over-worked families to never see each other is the result of good marketing and media scaremongering, and the gullibility of the general population.
But blaming MySpace is not the answer, and this lawsuit is incredibly stupid.
I decadent lifestyle is still a decadent lifestyle (and should be scorned as such), even if those living it toss a few bones to a worthy cause.
(Yes, I concede that, all other things being equal, the introduction of renewable energy into a such a home may net a global decrease in evergy consumed.)
if you look at it from a different viewpoint...maybe that of how bars are sometimes legally responsible for the deaths in drunk driving accidents should a person leave the establishment with the bartender/employees knowing they are not fit to drive.
That's no less lame than this lawsuit is. Just because there is much nanny-state-ism deeply entrenched in the country, we shouldn't support more of the same.
But if he and a couple of others hadn't footed the bill then, you probabably couldn't afford fresh vegetables now.
You mean centralized modern agriculture wouldn't have supplanted the more distributed, agrarian culture we had before then? You mean people might still be growing their own fresh vegetables?
Those damned lawyers! Always messing everything up for the rest of us.
If you're going to turn it into a religion, then it defeats the purpose. By all means, worship at the alter of self-flagellation, but don't think it makes you morally superior. It just means that instead of workship Jesus/Budda/Allah, you worship conservation.
I think you've mis characterized my words. Would you characterize the diabetic who yearns for that bowl of ice cream they want but can't have as practicing self-flagellation? That's the same kind of pain I refer to. Sometimes we must knowingly sacrifice for a good beyond our immediate wants.
By no means is my philosophy approaching a religious one. I just can't sit by, say "fuck it -- everyone else is doing it...", and then go about the same self-destructive routine the masses enjoy. That's just not right.
We just want to make sure our cars, our big screen TV's, etc are as efficient as practical.
That's a certainly a good start. But so few question the need for cars or big screen TVs to begin with. In most cases, both the mere act of owning them to begin with introduces inefficiencies into one's everyday life. A car that gets 100 mpg *still* relies on petroleum, still ties one to taxes/registration/insurance, and partitions us away from the world, rather than the active participant if we were to walk. That 60" Plasma TV that uses 5 Watts to run still sinks away a huge number of hours that could otherwise be spent being productive in other endeavors.
Hell, *I* have an automobile, and, at 16 mpg (a small truck), a rather inefficient one. But, it's the only auto the family owns, and we try to use it as little as possible, and when we do, we try to utilize it as much as we can (load up on firewood, groceries, etc.) so we can go without using it for as long as possible. I have a cousin, a single electrician living in the heart of Akron, who owns a Suburban. Where the hell is the sense in that?
If everyone made at least some effort to conserve, even if it sometimes *does* introduce a little inconvenience or may cost more in the dollar sense, we'd come a long way as a society. But the vast majority do not.
Well at least you're internally consistent an honest person, which puts you above quite a few others. The ones who buy a few organically grown bath robes from whatever trendy simple living magazine they get in the mail and call themselves "green" are the folks that should be hung out to dry as hypocrites.
Your kids will hate you (actually, they already do, but they're bright enough to realize that they need you for their meager bit of food and shelter that you grudgingly provide).
Maybe it's just merely cliche, but I was under the impression that upper and middle class kids also grow up to hate their parents for one reason or another (see afternoon talk shows). I doubt that the size of kids' bedrooms, the number of TVs in the house, or the number of toys bought for them is the litmus test for whether or not they hate their parents.
Technically though, wouldn't the earth be better off without people at all? After all, there is an environmental impact.
Indeed, you are correct. However, I generally don't advocate the destruction of Mankind. Though I *do* think that we could do better in utilizing our big human brains to put long term sustainability over short-term profits and acquisition of shiny things.
Family of 4 in 800-ft^2 house. In least in real estate terms. There's maybe 400 more upstairs, but it doesn't count due to the ceiling being slanted. More like loft space.
Life is too short to do without and be a drudgery...
Living w/o doesn't always imply drudgery. Most human lives run the same length, but each of us choose our own path to wander with that time. I doubt my family's simple, (more) earth-friendly lifestyle will leave any more/less legacy than yours acquiring a ton of stuff and travelling. Nor do I think that the quality of life of my children or grandchildren will be improved due the actions of my single family (it would take a significant percentage of the population to sacrifice to affect change). However, we try to live by example.
Your attitude on life is all too common. And while I don't fault you personally (after all, it is in our basic animal instincts to be selfish in the Darwinian sense), I do fault our society as a whole which not only condemns, but *encourages* such thinking. Gotta love Capitalism.:)
I have to ask, though... do you have *no* awareness or empathy of how millions/billions of people living like yourself will eventually lead to permanent damage and loss to our resources and ecology?
And this is the reason so few people (including me) are "green".
Then you, like this guy (and so many others), sadly miss the point of "being green".
I used to subscribe to Home Power Magazine, and while they have some great technical and inspiring articles, I got fed up with what some call "greenie weenies". All too often each magazine showcases some 3000+ square foot home built buy some lawyer or retired electrical engineer in 20+ remote acres in northern California, the array itself often costing way more than a typical house for the average American. While technologically cool, these monster systems defeat the purpose of actually giving a shit about one's footprint upon this tiny planet of ours.
These well-to-do yuppies invariably pat themselves on the back for installing huge solar/wind arrays, so they can heat/cool their huge houses, power a full suite of modern electrical conveniences, and live "normal" lives while thinking they've actually made a difference. I argue that houses that large, with all the materials included in their construction, negate *any* good the lifetime of alternative energy produced will provide to the global system.
Sure, not all folks who install these systems do it for altruistic reasons -- why not take advantage of tax write-offs/credits and state/federal subsidies, or that $100k system may be cheaper than running the grid 5 miles to their big new homes. But it really chaps my hide when these types are actually lauded for a contribution to society that they, in fact, haven't made.
Until technology advances to a near-limitless source of non-polluting power such as fusion, conservation means making a real sacrifice in your lives for the greater good. It *should* be a painful, daily reminder to the practitioners -- like how some religious fasting is supposed to remind its practitioners of humility, etc.. And even beyond the power aspect, resources of *all* types should be conserved. What the hell does a yuppie DINK (double-income-no-kids) couple *need* a house with a square footage over 1000? They don't. I covet libertarian ideals enough, and I loathe the idea of telling people how to enjoy their lives. However, the tragedy of the commons is alive and well on this planet, and it saddens me when even well-to-do folks, who often *can* make a real impact, choose not to out of some sort of entitlement.
That will happen regardless of who sells CFs. Wal Mart just wants in on ground zero, with GE gaining brand recognition and Wal Mart being the leading retailer of these bulbs. Eventually, people will likely switch due to economic pressures, and when they do, Wally World will have the retail market cornered already.
Slashdot Mirror
So, any legal eagles care to comment on if a private individual discovers such a device installed on their car w/o consent finds and then destroys it, are they guilty of anything as a result of doing so?
Had the place for about 15 months. It was a bank repo. Aside from busted plumbing due to the house freezing, and having to clear out another family's crap (there was a *lot*), it's a nice place. Solid brick.
$273/month, and that's with a shitty 8.x% interest rate. The house was $40k, but the loan is just south of that much.
Have you browsed the yogurt aisle at your local grocery store lately? You need to actually read labels to make sure you're getting the stuff w/ live, active cultures. Ditto sour cream. If you're lucky, maybe 3 brands out of 20 will have the stuff. These days, it's not the no-brainer you make it out to be.
As much as I despise the shit food industry, people themselves are at least 50% culpable for their poor choices.
$300/month on coffee?!? That's more than my monthly house payment. Some people have more money than sense!
What does he do?
He pays Madonna a million bucks to sit on his...
Oh wait! Wrong poll question.
google "angora rabbit"
Google "unschooling" as a growing trend in home schooling.
Banks are heavily regulated, for good reason. I doubt an online office suite provider would be (yet).
I live on a 1/4-acre parcel. Zoning is the issue. But even in places where you cannot have pigs, you can often raise rabbits (meat, wool), goats (meat, milk), and chickens (meat, eggs). Lacking favorable zoning, there is livestock that can be raised indoors clandestinely (rabbit, quail, guinea pig) as well as vegetables. I'm lucky in that I do live very rural, outside of an incorporated city or town, and my nearest neighbor is 0.5 miles away.
As for "good" primary education and college, those things are only really necessary if you hope your children will opt into the same rat-race as everyone else. If you can swing it on a low income and provide much for yourself, you have no need for a college education. That doesn't mean our kids will be uneducated by any means. However, our goal is to produce well-read, self-sufficient people with the ability to reason. If they want to pursue college to their own ends, they will certainly be able to do so.
That's not how I found my current digs, however. That was pure luck and patience.
Homes in this price range will never be featured on the cover of Martha Stewart Living, but they do just fine for those who are not obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses.
No, it's a sign of rampant consumerism. I'm raising a family of 4 on 16.75/hr @ 4hr/day (that's $17420/yr). I work from home and we home school the kids. One $40,000 1200-ft^2 house, one $16,000 truck, and a handful of low utilities. No unsecured debt, no payday loans, no over-indulgence on shiny things. We live well and eat even better (Ever eat home-raised pork? It don't get much better than that.) The boogie-man of "good schools" causing people to flee to rich 'burbs with good schools and "force" over-worked families to never see each other is the result of good marketing and media scaremongering, and the gullibility of the general population.
But blaming MySpace is not the answer, and this lawsuit is incredibly stupid.
Indeed.
(Yes, I concede that, all other things being equal, the introduction of renewable energy into a such a home may net a global decrease in evergy consumed.)
That's no less lame than this lawsuit is. Just because there is much nanny-state-ism deeply entrenched in the country, we shouldn't support more of the same.
You mean centralized modern agriculture wouldn't have supplanted the more distributed, agrarian culture we had before then? You mean people might still be growing their own fresh vegetables?
Those damned lawyers! Always messing everything up for the rest of us.
I think you've mis characterized my words. Would you characterize the diabetic who yearns for that bowl of ice cream they want but can't have as practicing self-flagellation? That's the same kind of pain I refer to. Sometimes we must knowingly sacrifice for a good beyond our immediate wants.
By no means is my philosophy approaching a religious one. I just can't sit by, say "fuck it -- everyone else is doing it...", and then go about the same self-destructive routine the masses enjoy. That's just not right.
We just want to make sure our cars, our big screen TV's, etc are as efficient as practical.
That's a certainly a good start. But so few question the need for cars or big screen TVs to begin with. In most cases, both the mere act of owning them to begin with introduces inefficiencies into one's everyday life. A car that gets 100 mpg *still* relies on petroleum, still ties one to taxes/registration/insurance, and partitions us away from the world, rather than the active participant if we were to walk. That 60" Plasma TV that uses 5 Watts to run still sinks away a huge number of hours that could otherwise be spent being productive in other endeavors.
Hell, *I* have an automobile, and, at 16 mpg (a small truck), a rather inefficient one. But, it's the only auto the family owns, and we try to use it as little as possible, and when we do, we try to utilize it as much as we can (load up on firewood, groceries, etc.) so we can go without using it for as long as possible. I have a cousin, a single electrician living in the heart of Akron, who owns a Suburban. Where the hell is the sense in that?
If everyone made at least some effort to conserve, even if it sometimes *does* introduce a little inconvenience or may cost more in the dollar sense, we'd come a long way as a society. But the vast majority do not.
Well at least you're internally consistent an honest person, which puts you above quite a few others. The ones who buy a few organically grown bath robes from whatever trendy simple living magazine they get in the mail and call themselves "green" are the folks that should be hung out to dry as hypocrites.
Maybe it's just merely cliche, but I was under the impression that upper and middle class kids also grow up to hate their parents for one reason or another (see afternoon talk shows). I doubt that the size of kids' bedrooms, the number of TVs in the house, or the number of toys bought for them is the litmus test for whether or not they hate their parents.
Technically though, wouldn't the earth be better off without people at all? After all, there is an environmental impact.
Indeed, you are correct. However, I generally don't advocate the destruction of Mankind. Though I *do* think that we could do better in utilizing our big human brains to put long term sustainability over short-term profits and acquisition of shiny things.
Family of 4 in 800-ft^2 house. In least in real estate terms. There's maybe 400 more upstairs, but it doesn't count due to the ceiling being slanted. More like loft space.
Life is too short to do without and be a drudgery...
Living w/o doesn't always imply drudgery. Most human lives run the same length, but each of us choose our own path to wander with that time. I doubt my family's simple, (more) earth-friendly lifestyle will leave any more/less legacy than yours acquiring a ton of stuff and travelling. Nor do I think that the quality of life of my children or grandchildren will be improved due the actions of my single family (it would take a significant percentage of the population to sacrifice to affect change). However, we try to live by example.
Your attitude on life is all too common. And while I don't fault you personally (after all, it is in our basic animal instincts to be selfish in the Darwinian sense), I do fault our society as a whole which not only condemns, but *encourages* such thinking. Gotta love Capitalism. :)
I have to ask, though... do you have *no* awareness or empathy of how millions/billions of people living like yourself will eventually lead to permanent damage and loss to our resources and ecology?
Then you, like this guy (and so many others), sadly miss the point of "being green".
I used to subscribe to Home Power Magazine, and while they have some great technical and inspiring articles, I got fed up with what some call "greenie weenies". All too often each magazine showcases some 3000+ square foot home built buy some lawyer or retired electrical engineer in 20+ remote acres in northern California, the array itself often costing way more than a typical house for the average American. While technologically cool, these monster systems defeat the purpose of actually giving a shit about one's footprint upon this tiny planet of ours.
These well-to-do yuppies invariably pat themselves on the back for installing huge solar/wind arrays, so they can heat/cool their huge houses, power a full suite of modern electrical conveniences, and live "normal" lives while thinking they've actually made a difference. I argue that houses that large, with all the materials included in their construction, negate *any* good the lifetime of alternative energy produced will provide to the global system.
Sure, not all folks who install these systems do it for altruistic reasons -- why not take advantage of tax write-offs/credits and state/federal subsidies, or that $100k system may be cheaper than running the grid 5 miles to their big new homes. But it really chaps my hide when these types are actually lauded for a contribution to society that they, in fact, haven't made.
Until technology advances to a near-limitless source of non-polluting power such as fusion, conservation means making a real sacrifice in your lives for the greater good. It *should* be a painful, daily reminder to the practitioners -- like how some religious fasting is supposed to remind its practitioners of humility, etc.. And even beyond the power aspect, resources of *all* types should be conserved. What the hell does a yuppie DINK (double-income-no-kids) couple *need* a house with a square footage over 1000? They don't. I covet libertarian ideals enough, and I loathe the idea of telling people how to enjoy their lives. However, the tragedy of the commons is alive and well on this planet, and it saddens me when even well-to-do folks, who often *can* make a real impact, choose not to out of some sort of entitlement.
I didn't think you were really supposed to toss disposable alkalines in the trash, at least if you want a green conscience.
Someone should send a letter to Osama bin Laden with a couple of bucks in it and a PGP-encrypted message. That'll freak out the feds. :)
That will happen regardless of who sells CFs. Wal Mart just wants in on ground zero, with GE gaining brand recognition and Wal Mart being the leading retailer of these bulbs. Eventually, people will likely switch due to economic pressures, and when they do, Wally World will have the retail market cornered already.
Not necessarily. I disable uploads when I d/l stuff that's not safe to share. I'm a shameless leech. There is no honor amongst thieves :)